16
● The Time-Travel Test. In five years, when the heat has cooled, will I be proud I did this, or will I explain it away as “context”? If future-me winces, present-me should pause.
● The Audience-of-One Test. Could I explain this choice to a younger version of me who still believed the honor code I signed in my second year of college: “I will not lie, steal, or cheat, nor tolerate those who do”? If that kid looks confused, I need to re-align.
And because I’m human, and therefore could be biased, I invite others into the loop:
● Circle of Advisors. Two or three truth-tellers with the right to blow the siren. If I notice I’m only calling comforters, that’s a sign I’m shopping for rationalizations, not wisdom.
● Pre-commitments. My red lines written in calm times: “I will not target the vulnerable,” “I will not falsify numbers,” and “I will not retaliate against dissent.” Pre-commitments beat adrenaline.
● Micro-bravery. A script I can actually say under pressure: “I’m not comfortable with this as stated,” “can we add a ‘human impact’ line to the slide,” “before we green light this, can we hear one dissenter?” Small sentences that keep my courage muscles active.
● The Good / Right / Fitting check.
○ Good (utilitarian): does this minimize harm and maximize human well-being?
○ Right (principled): would this be acceptable as a universal rule?
○ Fitting (virtue): does this reflect the kind of character I want to practice today?
When those three conflict (and they will), I slow down and name the tension instead of hiding it. Naming tension is not weakness; it’s how we stay honest.
Am I different from those who chose silence? Only if I choose to be, on purpose and with practice. The motivations that drove people then remain the same: obedience, diffusion, ambition, fear, and fatigue. The difference is not superior virtue but disciplined attention backed by small, consistent acts.
What happens to my compass if I stay silent? It drifts. My language cleans things up, I relabel stakes, and soon I can’t see what I used to see. Ethical fading is not a cliff but rather a dimmer switch. I keep the lights on by speaking up, kindly, clearly, and early.
How do I spot rationalization? I look for fog: euphemisms, special pleading, results-first logic, the need for complicated backstories. Then I run my tests, phone my truth-tellers, or pick one micro-brave sentence to say out loud. If I can do that much, I’m witnessing not just watching.
That, to me, is the point of everything FASPE stirred in me. Not to crown myself as “better” but to stay awake, to keep asking: am I watching or witnessing? Am I complicit or courageous? And to let those questions move my feet.
One of cohort’s faculty members, Rob Hayward, once asked me a question during one of our side talks at Auschwitz-Birkenau: “If you switch your mind from that of a bystander to that of one of many witnesses, what agency does that give you?”
=====
Israel Oladejo was a 2025 FASPE Business Fellow. He works as a program manager at Schneider Electric.